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Paris-Roubaix 2012 - The Queen of the Classics (257.5km)

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TomasC said:
At 0:11 Boonen: "Pussies! Let's go, Niki!"
And he's right.

I remember loving that moment when I was watching the race live. It was so clear that they were just setting a fast pace and not even trying an attack. Then they turned around, noticed the gap had opened, and Boonen just gestured with his head, "let's go."
 
What was impressive about Boonen's ride was how decisive his move was. It almost seemed like he initially wasn't intending to go so far from the finish, but when he saw his rivals hesitating he gave it full gas and took full advantage of the hesitation behind.

The same cannot be said for the chase, I just can't understand what the other riders were thinking here. They basically allowed Boonen to ride away and establish his initial gap, everyone was too afraid of exposing themselves and they all just sat and looked at each other waiting for someone else to take up the chase. Even after this initial hesitation Boonen's lead was not insurmountable, yet the group just sat back and let the three Sky riders do all of the work. They had 14 riders in the chase at one point, if all of these riders had started pulling and working together even Boonen might have had trouble holding off 14 against one.
 
Congrats to Boonen, it was almost like a procession of his strength pitted aginst the cobbles whilst also crushing the others.

Great ride by Terpstra/ the rest of OPQS ( a pity that Chavanel was not there after his puncture ).
Nice ride by Turgot, who surprised many- though as soon as i saw him join the group i knew he would win the sprint. I was however scared that he would not when Ballan surged near the end. Again i feel sorry for Ballan, the gap went just as he came back on and he had to wait for Hushovd who then crashed. His team that went so well placing him at the start then disappeared- they still did ok- congrats to Phinney ( though Ballan may have been able to do more if he did not attack earlier ).
Nice ride by Flecha- a rider with class and at least animated the race.
Boom also did well but he should have used his teammate to help Sky and he winded his sprint up too early.

I feel sorry for ML who looked to have a top 5 guarenteed. Also Pozzato who whilst maybe not as strong as Boonen could have reeled him back/ played a bigger role.

I cannot believe Sky rode for EBH, all that hard work by Stannard/ Hayman ( who finished 8th ). EBH should stick to G-W and grow more as a cobbled rider before getting leadership status at races like P-R.
I also do not get how Terpstra and Turgot caught back on, the other ridersshould have kept the pace higher. Also what happened to Degenkolb???
 
Jun 1, 2011
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Woke up this morning only to catch Tom getting hugs. I just saw the replay on NBC Sports. Always a lot of advertising there and I never saw Terpstra "loose" Boonen's wheel. Did he sit up and fall back to effect the chase or simply could not keep Tom's wheel on the pave?

Massive win for Boonen. What a crusher that guy is. Among the best solo wins ever!:D
 
insideout leadout said:
Did you guys think this was a great race this year?

I didn't feel it at all. Arenberg was fun as always but other than that, no emotions. I guess I miss the fight between Fabu and Boonen.

I admire Boonens' effort but it was not as good as the last 3 editions.

I think that Boonen would have won even with Cancellara here ( he made a mammoth effort from a long way out, whereas if Cancellara was here he would have responded to his attcks and smoked him in the sprint ).
 
_nm___ said:
is there any excuse for the team sky riders not taking turns at the front?

i was watching on french television; the motorbike journalist was asking himself the same question so he went to the sky car to ask the ds what bizarre tactics this was (obviously he didn't ask "what bizarre tactics is this?", he just asked "so what exactly is your tactic?"). the ds first started mumbling something understandable and then said he's too busy and it's too loud anyway. avoiding the question, i thought

i've just never seen a team chase like this, ever

(although, thinking about it, i have seen once or twice in the past a rider attack out of a peloton led by his own team and disorganise and destroy his team's effort this way, like Antonio Flecha did today. but this wasn't at the kind of level they show on television)

I was commenting the same during the race. Is was basically Boonen vs Stannard. No wonder Boonen pulled out a minute before Fletcha went. They was the worst chase effort I've seen in years.

I will temper this with that it's hard to paceline on cobbled sections but still...
 
gregrowlerson said:
I don't understand the negativity about the race. I thought it was a herculeun effort by Boonen.

I admittedly don't care for Tom. I don't like his past. And I like Patrick Lefevere even less. But I should recant what I wrote about this being the worst race in memory. 2009 was worse with the motorbike crash into the crowd that year. That was awful. That was also the year Tom drafted the motorbike towards the end with Pozzato and Thor in pursuit. But Tom seemed to fight more for it that year. Also Vanderaerden's 1987 win (no velodrome) was boring. And the charade of 1996 was maybe the worst of all.

But I also feel negative about the race for other factors. The aforementioned epic fail by Sky to chase, which Hog put very well. It was like watching Cat 4 racers chase. Plus there was a lack of any rivalry on the road. Very few dramatic moments, let alone crashes. Plus the "perfect" conditions. No rain, no mud, no real wind, no real dust even. It all made for a sterile race. To quote a former winner:

"A Paris–Roubaix without rain is not a true Paris–Roubaix. Throw in a little snow as well, it's not serious."

- Sean Kelly

:cool:
 
greenedge said:
I admire Boonens' effort but it was not as good as the last 3 editions.

Nah, it was better than 2010. At least there was actually a chase this year.

BillyTheKid said:
Always a lot of advertising there and I never saw Terpstra "loose" Boonen's wheel. Did he sit up and fall back to effect the chase or simply could not keep Tom's wheel on the pave?
Think it was the latter, because ultimately while Terpstra did an awesome job of breaking up the chase, it would have been easier for him to ride with Boonen for a while if he could so that Boonen wasn't soloing so much. Team tactics don't usually involve 50km solos when you could have been doing a relay and saving energy. So instead, when he was dropped, Terpstra sat up, waited for the group, and then devoted his energies to ruining their organisation, to great effect.
 
Jun 11, 2011
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meh, below average P-R, but congrats to Tommeke and OPQS.
just a little disappointed that track worlds were so far away, had they been in Europe this year, I think Iljo would have rode with KDK and got the rainbow jersey instead of DNF Paris-Roubaix, but thanks to the UCI's globalization push, the best riders were not all able to attend in Melbourne.
 
shalgo said:
I remember loving that moment when I was watching the race live. It was so clear that they were just setting a fast pace and not even trying an attack. Then they turned around, noticed the gap had opened, and Boonen just gestured with his head, "let's go."

that really is the moment to remember from P-R :D
 
I'm baffled by the amount of people that think this was less interesting or impressive than Canc's solo two years ago, who timed his attack when Boonen was in the back of the grupetto getting supplies from the car. In a year that Cancellara was out of this world (the best Cancellara ever, past, present AND future), in a year where Boonen was still suffering from both mental and physical ailments.

This year Boonen didn't even HAVE to attack, he would have mopped them up in the sprint too. Boonen isn't a TT specialist, but he is better at riding on cobbles than anyone else (including Cancellara). And that is where he can make the difference, and did. The fact that Sky didn't gain on Boonen was for two reasons; Boonen being too strong, Tersptra doing a good job. Even when Ballan, Flecha, Boom... where in full persuit without Terpstra blocking the chase, they still lost time. The only guy that managed to fake the impression being able to do something was Boom... for about 5 minutes til he blew himself up. Flecha couldn't drop the others, let alone come closer to Boonen.

All the BS talk about if Cancellara where here, Boonen wouldn't have won. What a joke. Because the past 3 times Boonen won, Cancellara wasn't there either? No Cancellara would have dropped Boonen in this years PR. Suggesting otherwise is no short of offensive.

And Boonen didn't have to attack? He rode Pozzato and everyone else out of his wheel, allowed him, Ballan, Terpstra... to return, and decided not to wait when the others pussied out.

Seriously... wtf
 
Logic-is-your-friend said:
I'm baffled by the amount of people that think this was less interesting or impressive than Canc's solo two years ago, who timed his attack when Boonen was in the back of the grupetto getting supplies from the car.
Seriously... wtf
Lol. one would think that when a Belgian wins like that you'd be happy but instead find something else to get mad at. i feel sorry for you if you can't enjoy it but if you want to play this game take a look at the facts rather than promoting this idea that absolutely anything a Belgian does must be superior to anything a non Belgian has ever done
:cool:

To those who take your Belgian > non Belgian logic Boonens ride is better but to those who compare the actual rides its a different story.

Cans solo was clearly better. for one he took out minutes out of the others. it was 2 minutes in no time and got as high as 4. Boonens max was 1.25
For another cancellara was riding against boonen (by his own words in great shape) hushovd pozzato and fit flecha.

Boonen on the other hand rode against ballan boom and an injured flecha. the fact that an injured flecha was never more than 1.30 behind boonen while a fit one was dangling 4 mins behind cancellara speaks for itself as to which was the superior ride.
 

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